Israeli legislature battles over Jordan Valley
Labor Knesset member Hilik Bar has presented a bill against annexing any territories within Judea, Samaria and Gaza, heading off a proposed annexation of the Jordan Valley.
The Israeli political center and left are at the height of a defensive holding battle with the right wing, which is trying to put up obstacles to prevent any transfer of land to the Palestinians within the framework of a diplomatic agreement. At the center of the ideological argument is the idea of the two-state solution, on which all Israeli governments have based the frameworks of their negotiations with the Palestinian Authority since the 1993 Oslo Accord.
The leaders of the right wing and the settlers of Judea and Samaria present two central arguments against the establishment of a Palestinian state in the territory of Judea and Samaria, most of which Israel would be forced to evacuate in such a plan. The first claim is that since the start of the settlement enterprise in the West Bank in the mid-1970s, facts have been established on the ground that preclude the evacuation of more than 300,000 Israelis, and no solution is feasible.
The second claim, occasionally raised as well by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government ministers, is that there’s no partner for peace on the Palestinian side. Their conclusion is that if there’s no one to talk to, and there’s no significant chance of arriving at an agreement and Israel should seek other solutions, such as a bi-national state.
The struggle over Israel’s red line regarding the compromises it is willing to make in a permanent agreement is now becoming a fundamental dispute between the supporters of the two-state solution and its opponents — between those who see the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside the State of Israel as the only practical solution for ending the conflict and those trying to scuttle any territorial compromise and evacuation of settlements.
